Hiya folks, In the spirit of openness, we’ve got a quick bit of news for you today: as of the 4th of February this year, the price of paints and some of the Start Collecting! sets will change. Paint pots will have a small increase of 20 pence per pot (or local currency equivalent). The paint sets, though, will have no change, making them an even better way to round out your painting arsenal. The Start Collecting! sets are going up a little too, but you’ll still save at least 20% over buying the contents individually and in some cases more like 40%! Happy painting,

Now would be a really good time to address some of the pricing imbalances in the international markets. Start collecting boxes already cost the equivalent of more than £80 here in Japan. Do they really need to make them cost even more?

"the price of paints and some of the Start Collecting! sets will change" & "affected Start Collecting! sets will change in price by either £5 or £10" - I wonder which ones will go up (and I don't think it's a good idea to have Start Collecting! boxes at different prices).

I just want to say thank you to GW for the heads up on the approaching price rises! Another sign of their big attitude change toward gamers!

In the past we'd have only gotten this on the day of the rise or in a garbled series of confusing updates from retailers around the world updating their listings here and there in bits and at varying discounts and local prices. So its really great that we are getting this update direct from GW themselves and in advance!

This is a pretty bizarre choice. The start collecting sets seem pretty much as gateway drugs towards getting you to spend more on other, non-discounted models. They offer only limited purchase choice per faction, after which the consumer suddenly has a reason to pay the laughably high prices for other kits in the faction (like 160 dollar monsters or 40 dollar single infantry models).

The problem is that they have come off the back of a couple of years of record profits and sales. The reintroduction of meaningfully discounted box sets has been a big part of their recent success.
Despite the heads up, this price increase will put off new players and people buying gifts for family members.
It is a pretty well known fact that most people's number one complaint about GW is their high prices. There is no explanation in that little article about why they are increasing prices. Will those slight increases really make such a difference their bottom line that it is worth driving away a certain number of potential customers?
It is also a very British centric article. GW needs to be aware that they are a global company. If they want to be transparent, they should be publishing a list of the new prices for every country they operate in rather than just saying local currency equivalent.

I’m one of the real wackos as I prefer the GW paints as I paint straight from the pot, no dropper bottles is my preference. That said I have about 100 various dropper bottles from the different ranges to fill in colors. Guess I’ll be trying out the instar paints soon.

Also I had been considering getting some start collecting sets, but then have continuously walked away thinking I can still get better value from other brands. GW still has improved greatly over the last few years.

They've been generating a lot of good will recently with their continued smoke and mirrors. They probably figure if they do this now, people will defend it and some might even support it out of some weird place of fanboyism.

The last minute bump to their profits when everybody scoops up the paints/SC's they want probably won't hurt either.

I would take the price rise if they refreshed the contents of the Start Collecting boxes, some of them are looking a bit tired now. I guess I need to grab the other Militarum Tempestus ones I intended to buy at the end of January then. They must be a prime candidate with their £80+ content "value".

They've been generating a lot of good will recently with their continued smoke and mirrors. They probably figure if they do this now, people will defend it and some might even support it out of some weird place of fanboyism.

The last minute bump to their profits when everybody scoops up the paints/SC's they want probably won't hurt either.

They've been generating a lot of good will recently with their continued smoke and mirrors. They probably figure if they do this now, people will defend it and some might even support it out of some weird place of fanboyism.

The last minute bump to their profits when everybody scoops up the paints/SC's they want probably won't hurt either.

UK Financial year runs April-March though?

GW's financial year ends on May 31, and they do two half-year reports.

Either way, there's no last minute boosting going on with this price increase.

Chikout wrote:Now would be a really good time to address some of the pricing imbalances in the international markets. Start collecting boxes already cost the equivalent of more than £80 here in Japan. Do they really need to make them cost even more?

Yes, it's a fact that in Japan everybody is swimming in big money. It's only fair that we pay a 60% extra to our GW overlords.

Chikout wrote:Now would be a really good time to address some of the pricing imbalances in the international markets. Start collecting boxes already cost the equivalent of more than £80 here in Japan. Do they really need to make them cost even more?

Yes, it's a fact that in Japan everybody is swimming in big money. It's only fair that we pay a 60% extra to our GW overlords.

M.

Oh I know y’all are loaded over there. It’s kind of gotten to be a thing at the FLGS where foreign visitors have been leaving one of their local bills behind to be tacked to the wall behind the register. They’re mostly all 5 and under, plus one 10. The Japanese note? 1000. Fancy schmancy big spenders.

Chikout wrote:Now would be a really good time to address some of the pricing imbalances in the international markets. Start collecting boxes already cost the equivalent of more than £80 here in Japan. Do they really need to make them cost even more?

Yes, it's a fact that in Japan everybody is swimming in big money. It's only fair that we pay a 60% extra to our GW overlords.

M.

Oh I know y’all are loaded over there. It’s kind of gotten to be a thing at the FLGS where foreign visitors have been leaving one of their local bills behind to be tacked to the wall behind the register. They’re mostly all 5 and under, plus one 10. The Japanese note? 1000. Fancy schmancy big spenders.

March 29 is when Brexit will hit (with all the uncertainty around it, whether it will be hard-, soft- or will not happen at all).
Like it or not, but GW is UK-based and such an event inevitably has an impact on its financials.

Heh. Given how small and numerous they are, .20+ per pot is a pretty hefty increase to the price of GW paints. I know I spent upwards of $150 filling in the holes/refreshing the commonly used paints in my paint collection last year. Now I have to ponder if it'd be worth doing again, or running down other paint lines.

A rise on start collecting is pretty terrible, too. I've picked up several for my current army project, at 5 or 10 pounds more (which probably means a rise from 85 to 100 dollars), that's a clear discouragement from buying them.

Aenar wrote:March 29 is when Brexit will hit (with all the uncertainty around it, whether it will be hard-, soft- or will not happen at all).
Like it or not, but GW is UK-based and such an event inevitably has an impact on its financials.

The effect has been positive for them so far, due to their sales being over 70% overseas. Unless the lack of uncertainty when it happens strengthens the GBP (which is reasonably likely to be fair) then they'll be creaming even more in with their $1 to £1 swap.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I wouldn’t be nearly as perturbed at a paint cost raise if they would change to a better pot.

We all pretty much know that GW paint is designed to dry out and now they want more for the privilege.

Exactly, Absolutely the worst designed paint pot I've ever seen and also basically the most expensive per oz paint. People have a leg to stand on when defending GW on their paint quality and color range vs cost but I don't think ive ever heard anybody justify the design choices inherent in their pots.

Price increase of the Start Collecting boxes I think is going to price some people out of starting the hobby or starting new armies while not everyone getting into the hobby wants to buy the various renditions of the "Employee of the Month Marines" vs the "Should of Called in Sick Marines". Not sure GW understands the psychological perspective that throwing on a 3rd digit to the price will have to American consumers (if it goes that high but 10£ probably means at least 15+ in freedom money). $100 vs $85 is a big deal in the minds of a lot of people which I wouldn't be surprised if it negatively impacts sales more than it helps boost profit margins.

The real problem is that in general most of the above 20% discount in the SC's is because of the already overpriced characters. So bumping the price cuts more of the actual value than it first appears. That said I dont generally do them and maybe (big stretch) this will open up the type of units they can put in them.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I wouldn’t be nearly as perturbed at a paint cost raise if they would change to a better pot.

We all pretty much know that GW paint is designed to dry out and now they want more for the privilege.

Exactly, Absolutely the worst designed paint pot I've ever seen and also basically the most expensive per oz paint. People have a leg to stand on when defending GW on their paint quality and color range vs cost but I don't think ive ever heard anybody justify the design choices inherent in their pots.

Serious question:
Do people not keep the rims of their paintpots clean? Never had an issue except when I got gunk building up that lets air in.

Price increase of the Start Collecting boxes I think is going to price some people out of starting the hobby or starting new armies while not everyone getting into the hobby wants to buy the various renditions of the "Employee of the Month Marines" vs the "Should of Called in Sick Marines". Not sure GW understands the psychological perspective that throwing on a 3rd digit to the price will have to American consumers (if it goes that high but 10£ probably means at least 15+ in freedom money). $100 vs $85 is a big deal in the minds of a lot of people which I wouldn't be surprised if it negatively impacts sales more than it helps boost profit margins.

I'm guessing that the Start Collecting sets that will get changed are:
Tau, Fyreslayers, Seraphon, Sylvaneth, and Skitarii.

All of those are better deals than buying components individually by a significant margin.

Hulksmash wrote:...maybe (big stretch) this will open up the type of units they can put in them.

This might be it. We’re soon due for a Daughters of Khaine SC, and I’m not sure how they could do anything different than the Blood Coven box, which was more expensive than an SC box. Also, GW raises prices on new releases, but evergreen products like SC boxes need to get price raises every few years.

Hulksmash wrote:...maybe (big stretch) this will open up the type of units they can put in them.

This might be it. We’re soon due for a Daughters of Khaine SC, and I’m not sure how they could do anything different than the Blood Coven box, which was more expensive than an SC box. Also, GW raises prices on new releases, but evergreen products like SC boxes need to get price raises every few years.

You also have products like the Tau, Skitarii, Seraphon, Sylvaneth, Fyreslayer, and Ironjawz Start Collectings where you have a few items in there(Crisis Suits, Onager, Carnosaur/Troglodon, Magmadroth, and the Gore-Gruntas) that make up either a large portion of the savings or like in the case of the Fyreslayer set actually necessitated them discontinuing offering the product on its own.

I mean why would I ever buy Crisis Suits by themselves for $75 or Gore-Gruntas for $77 when I could get MOAR!!!! for $10 more?

GW confirmed via Facebook that some Start Collecting! boxes will go up by 5GBP and some will go up by 10GBP. In GW exchange rates logic, that equates to roughly an 8 and 16 USD equivalent. I'm expecting my $92.50 and $100 as the two new price points.

Hulksmash wrote:...maybe (big stretch) this will open up the type of units they can put in them.

This might be it. We’re soon due for a Daughters of Khaine SC, and I’m not sure how they could do anything different than the Blood Coven box, which was more expensive than an SC box. Also, GW raises prices on new releases, but evergreen products like SC boxes need to get price raises every few years.

No they don't. The real costs of GW kits comes in design and making the moulds, not in the materials. Those costs are made up relatively early in the kit's life cycle, usually long before the kits end up in start collecting boxes.

At that point, they're just paying pennies for plastic. Start Collecting boxes make an absurd amount of profit, and don't 'need' price rises ever.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I wouldn’t be nearly as perturbed at a paint cost raise if they would change to a better pot.

We all pretty much know that GW paint is designed to dry out and now they want more for the privilege.

Exactly, Absolutely the worst designed paint pot I've ever seen and also basically the most expensive per oz paint. People have a leg to stand on when defending GW on their paint quality and color range vs cost but I don't think ive ever heard anybody justify the design choices inherent in their pots.

Price increase of the Start Collecting boxes I think is going to price some people out of starting the hobby or starting new armies while not everyone getting into the hobby wants to buy the various renditions of the "Employee of the Month Marines" vs the "Should of Called in Sick Marines". Not sure GW understands the psychological perspective that throwing on a 3rd digit to the price will have to American consumers (if it goes that high but 10£ probably means at least 15+ in freedom money). $100 vs $85 is a big deal in the minds of a lot of people which I wouldn't be surprised if it negatively impacts sales more than it helps boost profit margins.

I don't think there's any indication that GW even considers foreign markets. Starter sets (and some big models) merrily went three digits in America and later in Europe, and GW only ceased hiking the price short of 100 pounds.

I think they understand the psychological effect just fine. Everyone does, really. I never saw significant discounts on GW stuff at my local independent store for many long years. Now they habitually discount 125€ starter sets to get closer to 100€ because otherwise they're just not selling.

It just looks like GW happily makes policy around the domestic market and hopes the rest of the world takes care of itself.

Hulksmash wrote:...maybe (big stretch) this will open up the type of units they can put in them.

This might be it. We’re soon due for a Daughters of Khaine SC, and I’m not sure how they could do anything different than the Blood Coven box, which was more expensive than an SC box. Also, GW raises prices on new releases, but evergreen products like SC boxes need to get price raises every few years.

No they don't. The real costs of GW kits comes in design and making the moulds, not in the materials. Those costs are made up relatively early in the kit's life cycle, usually long before the kits end up in start collecting boxes.

At that point, they're just paying pennies for plastic. Start Collecting boxes make an absurd amount of profit, and don't 'need' price rises ever.

I'm tempted to say the start collecting increases are motivated by getting more money out of individual sales because the success of recent years has left them unable to produce enough to satisfy demand. Until they get more production capacity it's probably the only way to keep profits or growth at the same level, and thus investors happy.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I wouldn’t be nearly as perturbed at a paint cost raise if they would change to a better pot.

We all pretty much know that GW paint is designed to dry out and now they want more for the privilege.

Exactly, Absolutely the worst designed paint pot I've ever seen and also basically the most expensive per oz paint. People have a leg to stand on when defending GW on their paint quality and color range vs cost but I don't think ive ever heard anybody justify the design choices inherent in their pots.

Serious question:
Do people not keep the rims of their paintpots clean? Never had an issue except when I got gunk building up that lets air in.

They are a real pain in the rear to clean as they have so many little nooks for the paint to collect and gum it up. Its especially problematic on pots that you need to shake a lot like the "metals" that tend to separate when sitting idle. Once you get a tiny build up then the pots don't seal correctly and it gums up even faster while drying out the paints. Compared to dropper bottles or even some of the more basic looking pots like P3's stuff, GW paint pots are pants on head levels of stupidity. It shouldn't take dedicated effort to diligently clean each pot every time you use them when all the other paint companies have figured out how to not make this a problem (simpler design or dropper bottle).

Chikout wrote:Now would be a really good time to address some of the pricing imbalances in the international markets. Start collecting boxes already cost the equivalent of more than £80 here in Japan. Do they really need to make them cost even more?

Yes, it's a fact that in Japan everybody is swimming in big money. It's only fair that we pay a 60% extra to our GW overlords.

M.

Oh I know y’all are loaded over there. It’s kind of gotten to be a thing at the FLGS where foreign visitors have been leaving one of their local bills behind to be tacked to the wall behind the register. They’re mostly all 5 and under, plus one 10. The Japanese note? 1000. Fancy schmancy big spenders.

They are a real pain in the rear to clean as they have so many little nooks for the paint to collect and gum it up. Its especially problematic on pots that you need to shake a lot like the "metals" that tend to separate when sitting idle. Once you get a tiny build up then the pots don't seal correctly and it gums up even faster while drying out the paints. Compared to dropper bottles or even some of the more basic looking pots like P3's stuff, GW paint pots are pants on head levels of stupidity. It shouldn't take dedicated effort to diligently clean each pot every time you use them when all the other paint companies have figured out how to not make this a problem (simpler design or dropper bottle).

Strange choice to raise prices on paints, which are easy to get from other manufacturers, and are already relatively pricey. Then again, with all the painting tutorials they provide, maybe they are confident people will stick with their paints so they can have the exactly colors.

But obviously all those videos and marketing and all the other stuff on warhammer community and warhammer TV, that stuff costs money. There's only so high a rate at which people can buy new stuff before they can't keep up. So they need to make more money somewhere.

Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Then again, may just be that I've been hardened by all those years of the annual $5 price rise. This is tame from what I expected at seeing the thread title. $0.20 on paint and $10ish on Battleforces is nothing compared to those days

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

Vallejo was a better deal than Citadel paints before, it will be even more so after this. I think that GW's model prices are pretty fair, but I don’t know where they get off charging so much for their paint.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Availability is a thing when you have 5 months of winter and don't want frozen paints in the mail. I have a cross section of brands in my arsenal - GW, Vajello, Reaper, Army Painter, INSTAR. I can get most Vajello and GW at a local store, plus a small amount of Reaper. If I run out of specific stuff, however, it's either a day trip to Toronto or I wait for non-freezing temperatures to order off the internet.

If you might run out and need a replacement, knowing you can get it easily has advantages.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Hmph, wonder what the reasoning behind the increase to the SCs are, and how long it will be until we start seeing it cascade down to the underlying kits.

Luckily, I’m just about done with GW and have more than enough I’d ever need. I had been eyeballing the Beast Raiders kit (for show, never expect I’d game with them), but it’s likely now I’ll just pass that up. Thanks GW for giving me FEWER reasons to keep buying your overpriced toys.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Plan better.

And if only one or two pots are needed and shipping is $7.00? GW's paint becomes less expensive at that point.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Surely you notice when you're getting low and then order in anticipation of running out rather than the point at which you do.

Also, if you can't wait for several days to carry on you might want to work on your patience.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Availability is a thing when you have 5 months of winter and don't want frozen paints in the mail. I have a cross section of brands in my arsenal - GW, Vajello, Reaper, Army Painter, INSTAR. I can get most Vajello and GW at a local store, plus a small amount of Reaper. If I run out of specific stuff, however, it's either a day trip to Toronto or I wait for non-freezing temperatures to order off the internet.

If you might run out and need a replacement, knowing you can get it easily has advantages.

True, but that's probably less of an issue for the British flag poster I responded to than a Canuck. We very rarely get such adverse weather conditions that paint freezing in transit is a legitimate concern, we also don't have many non-GW gaming stores, so unless you're prepared to buy online you're really limiting yourself.

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Plan better.

And if only one or two pots are needed and shipping is $7.00? GW's paint becomes less expensive at that point.

That too.

Also having played 20 years and still having many many years old armies paint compatibility becomes issue. Vallejo good. Do they have 100% match on colours and finding exact shade is bit of tricky. If not exact match look will change.

I'd imagine one of the reasons for the paint price rise is it's one of the few things they sell that GW doesn't make

(and unlike tools they've got far less freedom to tell a supplier nope we're not paying any more as moving the whole paint range to a new factory would be a major undertaking)

the SC price changes are clearly more to actual desire on GWs part. It will be interesting to see if they're just going to raise the prices of the boxes with the highest nominal value (evening out the savings)

Kalamadea wrote:Honestly, if you're still using GW paints in this age of Vallejo, Armybuilder, Reaper, P3, Coat D'Arms, Scale 75, Warcolours, and INSTAR then I have no sympathy.

Availability is the issue for me - there are three places within walking distance of my workplace that stock GW paints. One also has some Vallejo (not the complete range), but none of the other ranges are stocked.

You're on the internet, no?

I use almost all those brands and only have a GW within a 40 mile radius afaik that would sell anything like hobby supplies. Sure, every now and then you pick up a paint that was different to what you thought it might be, but these days I can google pretty much any paint and see a real example of it (rather than a useless digital paint swatch) and those missteps are certainly less costly than having to replace dried out GW stuff.

Internet does not provide me with paint right away. FLGS does. I don't want to wait days to continue with project just due to lack of paints.

Plan better.

And if only one or two pots are needed and shipping is $7.00? GW's paint becomes less expensive at that point.

That too.

Also having played 20 years and still having many many years old armies paint compatibility becomes issue. Vallejo good. Do they have 100% match on colours and finding exact shade is bit of tricky. If not exact match look will change.

I am mostly disappointed with the Start Collecting price increase. I kinda hope they change up the SC to actually give you something equal in return and start providing SC for armies that haven't had one yet(Idoneth, Daughters).

Feels like I need to buy my 2nd Bloodbound SC before the price hike hits.

I had no idea GoreGruntas were $79! I assumed they were in the $65 range, but either price is higher than I would pay. Which is why I got the SC box. The character and Black Orks made it a worthwhile purchase.

If they increase the wrong boxes, the sales will dry up. The only reason to buy the Sylvaneth is for the Treelord. There are dryads to be had for pennies, if you really want them. The 40k Marine boxes are barely a savings now, and only worth it if you happen to want the character. IMO, of course.

Paint-wise, I'll shift back to Army Painter. I had picked up GW's current paints on discount locally, so I was giving them a run. But at ($4+)12ml vs ($3)18ml, it's not worth continuing with them.

I feel like I should pick up some Start Collecting before the price increase (I've been meaning to get the Sylvaneth one for years). Is there a place that has the value break down of the different ones so that I can make a guess at which ones will be little more expensive versus the ones that will be a lot more expensive?

Sqorgar wrote:I feel like I should pick up some Start Collecting before the price increase (I've been meaning to get the Sylvaneth one for years). Is there a place that has the value break down of the different ones so that I can make a guess at which ones will be little more expensive versus the ones that will be a lot more expensive?

Not sure if the US has the same restrictions but in the UK current Start Collecting boxes are now limited to 1 of each per store per week until price increase hits.

Start Collecting sets tend to be a pretty good deal, and will probably still be a good deal. I will have another look and see if I want any of them before the price rise, only the Beastmen and Skaven ones had caught my eye so far. I have Nurgle and Lizardmen, which are pretty cool.

But the paint...I dunno. Been a GW paint user since starting in the hobby, with only a small divergence into PP paints for a while. But they really are very overpriced now and my hobby shop stocks full ranges of Army Painter and Vallejo. I think it is time for me to start switching over. I just need to find out the replacement colours for the ones I am using and take the plunge. Might even buy one of the huge paint sets so I have a big selection.

The paints have not been great quality for a while - I find they tend to seperate and gunkify pretty often, and the colour is often not consistent because of this, particularly the metallics.

Albino Squirrel wrote:Or just buy the GW paints at his local store? That seems much easier. I don't know why it is so important to you to convince him otherwise.

Oh, did this stop being a discussion forum? He engaged with me, not the other way round and I've offered a couple of simple rejoinders while on my commute home and waiting for a rugby game to kick off.

Let's say they raise the Ork box by 10 pounds. It is currently 50 pounds with value worth 64,5 pounds. With a 10 pound increase you are saving at best 4,5 pounds. That's laughable savings to be honest. Now, if they go for varying prices(some increase to 55 and others 60) then still you are only saving around 9.5 pounds on the Ork Start Collecting. You are basically getting a discount off the Painboy which costs 15,5 pounds.

The Space Marine is 68 pounds with a savings of 8-13 pounds with the new change. Again, you're just getting a small discount off the HQ.

Khorne is currently value of 73 pounds. Here you get better savings and overall better deal as the HQ can be used as a Heavy weapon.

I am honestly wondering if they are actively trying to limit the sales of Start Collecting so only beginners buy them, ie. people who have no models and would actually gain anything from this.

Eldarsif wrote:Let's say they raise the Ork box by 10 pounds. It is currently 50 pounds with value worth 64,5 pounds. With a 10 pound increase you are saving at best 4,5 pounds. That's laughable savings to be honest. Now, if they go for varying prices(some increase to 55 and others 60) then still you are only saving around 9.5 pounds on the Ork Start Collecting. You are basically getting a discount off the Painboy which costs 15,5 pounds.

The Space Marine is 68 pounds with a savings of 8-13 pounds with the new change. Again, you're just getting a small discount off the HQ.

Khorne is currently value of 73 pounds. Here you get better savings and overall better deal as the HQ can be used as a Heavy weapon.

I am honestly wondering if they are actively trying to limit the sales of Start Collecting so only beginners buy them, ie. people who have no models and would actually gain anything from this.

I think the inclusion of the character model was the original means by which they hoped to limit veteran players from purchasing large numbers of the box sets.

redux wrote:Current exchange rate for 20 p is $0.25 US. I believe GW offers 102 paints in it's line. This ends up being an increase in the neighborhood of $25.50 for one of every pot.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be lighting torches and sharpening pitch forks over this.

With Reaper you pay $3.69 for a 14.8 ml bottle of paint

With GW you pay $4.55 for a 12 ml bottle of paint (before the price hike). With the 25 cent price hike, it will now cost $4.80.

So you are looking at 24.9 cents per ml with Reaper v 40 cents per ml with GW, AND you get a better bottle.

The only thing GW paints really have going for them right now are their ubiquity but with the internet, that is not as compelling of an argument in favor of GW paints as it once was.

Better bottle is certainly subjective. Some may prefer pots. I haven't bought a lot of the most recent batch of GW paints, but I have a lot of the prior ones, and if they are similar, then the GW paints are much better paints. Or at least have much more pigment than the reaper paints. So given that the difference for a bottle of paint is only about a dollar, many people would pay that dollar to have the better paint. Not to mention that they can get the exact colors used in the GW painting tutorial videos and in White Dwarf if they are trying to replicate one of those paint schemes. And, of course, people might prefer pots to droppers.

Now, the bad part is if you are just starting out and want to buy a set with a lot of paint in it. That is a lot of money to drop all at once.

Modock wrote:Citadel pots are one of the worst bottles on the market...that's not subjective.

Paint WILL dry faster than in dropper bottles cause the opening is much bigger and that's a fact. The lid will not close as tight as in dopper bottles.

There's a reason hundreds of people across the globe are transfering paint from GW pots to dropper bottles.

It IS subjective. The paint isn't going to dry out in the pot. I have paints from the earliest use of those pots and they haven't dried out. And I've had many instances of paint drying and clogging up the dropper on a dropper bottle.

Modock wrote:Citadel pots are one of the worst bottles on the market...that's not subjective.

Paint WILL dry faster than in dropper bottles cause the opening is much bigger and that's a fact. The lid will not close as tight as in dopper bottles.

There's a reason hundreds of people across the globe are transfering paint from GW pots to dropper bottles.

It IS subjective. The paint isn't going to dry out in the pot. I have paints from the earliest use of those pots and they haven't dried out. And I've had many instances of paint drying and clogging up the dropper on a dropper bottle.

The lastest pot is bad...I don't wanna go anecdotal, you can just check it if you want to but there are a lot of cases when brand new unopened pots are dried or useless.

You mean nozzle is clogged... it takes exactly 3 seconds and a paper clip to unclogged it. Clogged nozzle is actually a good thing because it means the paint is even more
air tight.

Actually, even when starting out, GW doesn't compare too bad to reaper. Reaper paint sets are 54 bottles for $185 (though you can pick any colors you want). GW has a Base and Shade set that can be had for $195 which includes 15 Shade paints in 24ml pots and 37 Base paints in 12ml pots. Given that with some colors you may go a long time without finishing an entire pot anyway, the difference between 12ml and 15ml pots doesn't seem that significant.

I don't know about craft acrylics, but Vallejo is at least equal in quality to Citadel. P3, AK, Scale 75 and Warpaints are also very good, but they have very different properties so they make a tougher comparison.

Vallejo is $0.19/ml at MSRP, and Citadel will be $0.37/ml after the price hike, so it's almost twice as expensive. I don't care what anyone says, even if you think Citadel paints are better for some reason, they're not twice as good.

I would imagine GW is preparing for a messy divorce by the UK from the EU, deal or no deal it will hurt all parties.

GW are actually protecting their system and their consumers with this rise IMO. Supply chains, tariffs, FX conversion etc will all become a lot more variable in the year ahead. The price rise should see GW through safely although painful monetarily to us players.

I would much rather GW stayed stable unlike a number of companies who have miscalculated and fallen by the wayside. I am guessing the cushion is 4-5%. Could be wrong but this is my suspicion for the rise.

Picking up on one point someone else made. I also do wish they would move a little bit away from monopose figures, much preferred the kit bashing options on previous troop sets and HQ’s.

Chimaera wrote:I would imagine GW is preparing for a messy divorce by the UK from the EU, deal or no deal it will hurt all parties.

GW are actually protecting their system and their consumers with this rise IMO. Supply chains, tariffs, FX conversion etc will all become a lot more variable in the year ahead. The price rise should see GW through safely although painful monetarily to us players.

I would much rather GW stayed stable unlike a number of companies who have miscalculated and fallen by the wayside. I am guessing the cushion is 4-5%. Could be wrong but this is my suspicion for the rise.

Given that they regularly sell stuff in multiple other currencies, that they sell anywhere in the world, not only in the UK and the EU, and that their non-pound prices are already higher anywhere from "this is like 15% more expensive here" to "are you fething kidding me", that doesn't hold much water, IMHO.

Chimaera wrote:I would imagine GW is preparing for a messy divorce by the UK from the EU, deal or no deal it will hurt all parties.

GW are actually protecting their system and their consumers with this rise IMO. Supply chains, tariffs, FX conversion etc will all become a lot more variable in the year ahead. The price rise should see GW through safely although painful monetarily to us players.

I would much rather GW stayed stable unlike a number of companies who have miscalculated and fallen by the wayside. I am guessing the cushion is 4-5%. Could be wrong but this is my suspicion for the rise.

Picking up on one point someone else made. I also do wish they would move a little bit away from monopose figures, much preferred the kit bashing options on previous troop sets and HQ’s.

This is nothing but GW apologism at its best. The company already sells at 15-20% over what they should as is. They could have take a price freeze for the next 5-10 years just to get to “competitive” pricing.

Chimaera wrote:I would imagine GW is preparing for a messy divorce by the UK from the EU, deal or no deal it will hurt all parties.

GW are actually protecting their system and their consumers with this rise IMO. Supply chains, tariffs, FX conversion etc will all become a lot more variable in the year ahead. The price rise should see GW through safely although painful monetarily to us players.

I would much rather GW stayed stable unlike a number of companies who have miscalculated and fallen by the wayside. I am guessing the cushion is 4-5%. Could be wrong but this is my suspicion for the rise.

Given that they regularly sell stuff in multiple other currencies, that they sell anywhere in the world, not only in the UK and the EU, and that their non-pound prices are already higher anywhere from "this is like 15% more expensive here" to "are you fething kidding me", that doesn't hold much water, IMHO.

So you don’t believe post March the Pound as well as the Euro won’t see fluctuations as well as global currency ones as currencies realign? I am guessing we could see swings larger than GW price hike until things stabilise, whatever that may look like? If there is no deal these could be more varied as well as import export tariffs being introduced, go figure.

TheSecretSquig wrote:UK 2019 forecasted inflation is predicted to be around 2%. GW's £0.20 rise on paint pots is 8%. I'm sue there's some logic there............... Just struggling to see it.

When was the last time GW incresed the cost of the paint cost and what have the accumulated inflation been under that time?

also the pound has lost in value and with brexit it will lose more, so all production cost will increase

The pound losing money has no merit when GW doesn't base prices off of actual exchange rates. They make up their own prices anyway.

The start collecting sets were an okay deal. At $100 i think they will price themselves out of the market considering some companies have lowered their prices. US prices are still a good 30% over europes prices.

As far as their paint goes their pots are rediculous to work with as typically all they do is dry out the paints. I prefer dropper bottles. Army painter paints kind of suck but with even my LGS getting Valejo there are definately options out there. Now if my LGS would only get Reaper paints....

Modock wrote:Citadel pots are one of the worst bottles on the market...that's not subjective.

Paint WILL dry faster than in dropper bottles cause the opening is much bigger and that's a fact. The lid will not close as tight as in dopper bottles.

There's a reason hundreds of people across the globe are transfering paint from GW pots to dropper bottles.

It IS subjective. The paint isn't going to dry out in the pot. I have paints from the earliest use of those pots and they haven't dried out. And I've had many instances of paint drying and clogging up the dropper on a dropper bottle.

It isn't.
It does. I've gone through multiple bottles on the racks in stores looking for paints in good condition and repeatedly found none for the colors I've wanted- five or six sealed bottles in a row that are a barely liquid mess.
You're lucky and unlucky (or careless) respectively.

The funny thing is, I've still got some of the original citadel paints, and several decades later they're still in better shape than pots I find on store shelves today.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I wouldn’t be nearly as perturbed at a paint cost raise if they would change to a better pot.

We all pretty much know that GW paint is designed to dry out and now they want more for the privilege.

Exactly, Absolutely the worst designed paint pot I've ever seen and also basically the most expensive per oz paint. People have a leg to stand on when defending GW on their paint quality and color range vs cost but I don't think ive ever heard anybody justify the design choices inherent in their pots.

Price increase of the Start Collecting boxes I think is going to price some people out of starting the hobby or starting new armies while not everyone getting into the hobby wants to buy the various renditions of the "Employee of the Month Marines" vs the "Should of Called in Sick Marines". Not sure GW understands the psychological perspective that throwing on a 3rd digit to the price will have to American consumers (if it goes that high but 10£ probably means at least 15+ in freedom money). $100 vs $85 is a big deal in the minds of a lot of people which I wouldn't be surprised if it negatively impacts sales more than it helps boost profit margins.

The current paint pot is better than the Mk3 and Mk4 paint pots...Mk3 screwtops (see photo) dried out within weeks of opening...and within months even if you never opened it. I just threw out all of my fliptop Mk4s the other day, not a single one had wet paint in it...save the inks...which I kept. Mk1 (the same ones P3 uses now) were 20ml, Mk2 went down to 17.5ml, mk3 dropped to 12ml, and it's stayed there since...

Really got to love the race to the bottom on pricing logic some people propose on here

As for apologism suggested, no just reality.

Which ever way you cut it GW produce great figures and the box sets are great value.

Different market but big companies, compare the SW’s Legion offering to Dark Imperium. One cost £80 and the other £95. One gives you loads of card and 33 poor quality figures, the other offers some paper but 53 very high quality miniatures. Which one is better value?

Of course this is a narrow comparison but the point is still valid i.e. how is GW over priced in the market on a quality like for like basis.

redux wrote:Current exchange rate for 20 p is $0.25 US. I believe GW offers 102 paints in it's line. This ends up being an increase in the neighborhood of $25.50 for one of every pot.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be lighting torches and sharpening pitch forks over this.

With Reaper you pay $3.69 for a 14.8 ml bottle of paint

With GW you pay $4.55 for a 12 ml bottle of paint (before the price hike). With the 25 cent price hike, it will now cost $4.80.

So you are looking at 24.9 cents per ml with Reaper v 40 cents per ml with GW, AND you get a better bottle.

The only thing GW paints really have going for them right now are their ubiquity but with the internet, that is not as compelling of an argument in favor of GW paints as it once was.

Where are you currently spending $4.55 on GW paints? They're only $4.25 now. They'll become $4.50.

They're $4.50 out our FGS and I'm betting (not because of the the store owner) that GW goes ahead and makes it an even 5 bucks.
GW don't seem to do exact conversions of price from pounds to dollars.

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Tamereth wrote:Raising the price of the start collecting sets seems dumb, and having different sets at different prices is even dumber.

New GW, like old GW but with a Facebook page.

Agree. I've liked many of the things 'new' GW have done over the past 2-3 years.
But it's starting to seem like they're believing their own hype again.
See also Necromunda (re-released as a cleaned up version after only one year).

TheSecretSquig wrote:UK 2019 forecasted inflation is predicted to be around 2%. GW's £0.20 rise on paint pots is 8%. I'm sue there's some logic there............... Just struggling to see it.

The last interim GW financials showed a reduction in their margins, sales were going up really well but profits not going up by so much. They may be trying to get back to the margins they had a year ago.

Anyone with a better memory than me want to recall the last time the prices of start collecting sets or paint pots went up? I figure those make up a large enough proportion of their sales to really matter to their profit margins.

Bit surprised with the paint increase given GW paint is already so expensive compared to competitors. For certain paints that are not available elsewhere with the same quality (certain colors & technical paints) I am willing to shell out plenty extra but for regular colors not so much. Especially with the pot design.

Start collecting prices going up I am not surprised by, it was inevitable. But if it is really going to be $100 that is a bad plan because the impression is of a much bigger price due to sticker shock of three digits. Even $95 would give a much better impression.

It might also be because in AoS some armies are almost entirely within their Start Collecting box. Take Fyreslayers almost all the models are in the SC box and the Magmadragon isn't even sold outside of it (they list it on the website, but it just comes in the same SC box with all the rest at the same price). So chances are on armies like that GW isn't seeing huge profits because most people are building the bulk of the army though SC boxes.

Now granted part of that is in GW's camp - they chose to make dwarves into multipel smaller groups and haven't released more models or/nor combined them into a larger unified force.

Arbitrator wrote:They probably figure if they do this now, people will defend it and some might even support it out of some weird place of fanboyism.

Already happening, including right below my last post:

I just want to say thank you to GW for the heads up on the approaching price rises! Another sign of their big attitude change toward gamers!

That's someone defending, nay, thankingGW for this, because they told us in advance. It shows the 'big change' in their 'attitude'.

Vankraken wrote:Even better, stop making HQs mono pose so have a reason to get multiples of the same model without having what looks like a bunch of clones.

But if they have options and modularity, third party bits makers will destroy them!!!

lord_blackfang wrote:Raising the price of SC! is an obvious prelude to raising the price of kits that SC! include, because then you can reframe the second raise as "this makes SC! boxes even better value!"

Then another 6 months later you bring the rest of the kits "into line" and ergo presto, an across the board hike with minimal negative publicity.

But GW would never do that. They've changed! They post funny videos on YouTube and have a Facebook page! That means they're better... somehow...

If they really wanted to be helpful they'd tell us which Star Collectings are going up.

"But that would encourage people to buy them now!!!" someone would no doubt bleat at us.

I never said I liked higher prices All I said was thanks because this is being announced a month or so in advance of a price rise that is coming. It is a change because in the past GW would have just raised the prices overnight; or we might have had a week or so of confusion as retailers (3rd party) got updates and some of that info filtered out to us.

Instead GW has told us up front that there's a rise coming and what the rise is going to be on and by roughly how much we can expect the rise. So in my view its all good information.

Many companies don't give any warning; prices just go up and there's no advanced notice. It's good customer service that they have told us of the rise.

I'll be sticking with GW paints because I've tried the rest and they are not as good in the long run. The only ones I don't like are the taller wash bottles, so I just put the wash into shorter bottles.
The SC price increase won't effect me much, the ones I want still have a massive saving.

happy_inquisitor wrote:Anyone with a better memory than me want to recall the last time the prices of start collecting sets or paint pots went up? I figure those make up a large enough proportion of their sales to really matter to their profit margins.

Paints last went up mid-2015, Base paints went from £2.40 to £2.55, Edge paints from £2.55 to £2.75, Shades went up in price but also pot size.

redux wrote:Current exchange rate for 20 p is $0.25 US. I believe GW offers 102 paints in it's line. This ends up being an increase in the neighborhood of $25.50 for one of every pot.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be lighting torches and sharpening pitch forks over this.

Current exchange rate means absolutely nothing. GW makes up their own exchange rates that are fairly outdated. I don't have the exact number memorized, but I think they value 1 pound to equal 1.6usd. Also noting that for most of the world, the price is exactly as listed, with tax baked in, while in the US, the tax is added after the fact. So that 20p actually is closer to 36 cents, + tax, so about 40 cents. Not overly much honestly, but 5-10 pounds on start collecting sets means 8-16 dollars. Buying at retail price with tax, you will be on the lower end at 100 bucks, and with the more expensive bump well over 100 bucks.

As it is, the only time I really buy GW products is when ebay has a 15% coupon, as that way I can usually avoid tax, get free shipping, and have an actually halfway decent deal that I can justify spending.

Most likely GW is hedging its bets with Brexit, as that is a whole mess of uncertainties piling up. The problem is that GW never does price decreases, so if it ends up smooth sailing, we'll still be stuck with the extra costs.

So, I confess to not knowing much about other companies’ paint “blends”...but GW having pricier paints that come pre-set as shades, base paints, layers, edges, dries, washes, glazes...part of that upcost is having the paint styles ready made for everyone to pick up and use immediately without having to fish for that correct blend. Or pigment changes that allow for good coverage for difficult colors like red, yellow and orange. $0.25/pot increase won’t kill me. The SC cost increases suck though...gonna snag 2 Slaanesh SC boxes off eBay before the hike hits.

Arbitrator wrote:They probably figure if they do this now, people will defend it and some might even support it out of some weird place of fanboyism.

Already happening, including right below my last post:

I just want to say thank you to GW for the heads up on the approaching price rises! Another sign of their big attitude change toward gamers!

That's someone defending, nay, thankingGW for this, because they told us in advance. It shows the 'big change' in their 'attitude'.

Vankraken wrote:Even better, stop making HQs mono pose so have a reason to get multiples of the same model without having what looks like a bunch of clones.

But if they have options and modularity, third party bits makers will destroy them!!!

lord_blackfang wrote:Raising the price of SC! is an obvious prelude to raising the price of kits that SC! include, because then you can reframe the second raise as "this makes SC! boxes even better value!"

Then another 6 months later you bring the rest of the kits "into line" and ergo presto, an across the board hike with minimal negative publicity.

But GW would never do that. They've changed! They post funny videos on YouTube and have a Facebook page! That means they're better... somehow...

If they really wanted to be helpful they'd tell us which Star Collectings are going up.

"But that would encourage people to buy them now!!!" someone would no doubt bleat at us.

... and why wouldn't GW want to encourage sales?

People generally understand that improvement does not mean perfection or even good, just that it is better than before. People also generally understand that providing entertaining content on youtube & facebook is better than not providing such content.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
But the number of businesses projected to not make it through Brexit is considerably large.
Admittedly they are all going to be huge names. But there are always companies that you ‘never expected to go under’ in regular times - let alone the economic crisis that may follow..

Danny76 wrote:Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
But the number of businesses projected to not make it through Brexit is considerably large.
Admittedly they are all going to be huge names. But there are always companies that you ‘never expected to go under’ in regular times - let alone the economic crisis that may follow..

Eh a lot of companies have been on the rocks before Brexit and the highstreet has been particularly bad over the last years. A combination of rising costs and dwindling customers whilst also competing with online businesses which have seen a rise in customers and operate with far lower costs for comparable size of market served.

The rates being set by London for shops doesn't help and many have closed doors because the rates were more than they took; the combination of tax and rent on many highstreet shops has been crippling. When you couple that to reduced footfall customers because many are now shopping online and you've got a system whereby to survive your highstreet shop finds it needs an internet store. Then one day they realise that they are taking more trade online tahn through the store that's costing them a small fortune to run.

Brexit might well cause a huge upheaval (although I'd argue part of it is artificially created by the lack of solid information and the apparent desire to keep many negotiations in a stalemate so that the period of uncertainty is prolonged), but I'd say its only highlighting issues that are already apparent and in trouble due to other pressures. It might cause many to close earlier, but barring a huge reversal and change of many policies, many of them might have closed up anyway - at least for highstreet shops.

My point was a number of folks here seem to explain away or ignore anything bad GW does because they've "changed", and most of that change amounts to a social media presence.

A great video looking back on the year's miniatures does not undo the bull gak of an unnecessary price rise.

At the same time one has only two choices.

Accept the price rise and keep buying; or move on. There's little to rant or complain about that will achieve anything and GW are not alone in prices rising on products. It's like swimming against the tide. Also one could argue that the reduced hostile reaction (on forum communities) might well represent the fact that more people are happy with GW's general policies and attitude as of late and that many who are more hostile/negative have either moved on or given up. Ergo there are fewer bothering to complain - some having voted with their wallet and bought into other lines; and others who have seen no reaction to GW ever lowering prices and thus see no point in arguing and complaining when it won't change anything. Grin and bear it.

timetowaste85 wrote:So, I confess to not knowing much about other companies’ paint “blends”...but GW having pricier paints that come pre-set as shades, base paints, layers, edges, dries, washes, glazes...part of that upcost is having the paint styles ready made for everyone to pick up and use immediately without having to fish for that correct blend. Or pigment changes that allow for good coverage for difficult colors like red, yellow and orange. $0.25/pot increase won’t kill me. The SC cost increases suck though...gonna snag 2 Slaanesh SC boxes off eBay before the hike hits.

The market proposition for GW paints is really very different to the competitors. They are part of a whole approach including video tutorials (Peachy and Duncan), an app that will remind you of workable combos and store staff who can advise on colours and combinations. It is all extremely beginner-friendly for a hobby that could be a bit hard for beginners to get into at a decent level. Everything about their range - even the bottle design so despised in this thread - is designed to be beginner-friendly. A 2.70 pot of paint that comes with all that easily accessible support and guidance is far better value for money for a beginner than a 1.80 dropper bottle that does not. The pot prices are going up in line with inflation since they last went up, the proposition and market positioning of their paints is not changing at all.

The SC sets looks a little different as they are changing their pricing relative to the single kits. I think this is a shame but like any business they have to continually make decisions on how much they want their entry-point to be a loss leader as opposed to being a profit-maker in its own right. I think we all know that SC sets are not only purchased as an entry-point into the hobby, they are good value and so often also cannibalise sales of single kits which have higher profit margins. It is a shame but it is fairly clearly a move to protect their profit margins. The financial reports do not give enough detail to explain what is happening but the last set clearly showed that there was an issue with their margins going down even while sales were rising - and this has been reflected in something like a 15% hit to their share price since then.

I think the share price also took a hit because the bubble on their outstanding rise started to burst and GW themselves noted that they expected things to level off. So they likely saw a loss of value and investors who were in it for the fast gains and who have now likely moved onto other fast growing companies. Also lets not forget that, at least last time I checked, their share price is still way up for GW in general.

My guess is that the increase in price for SC boxes will allow for changing the content of the boxes themselves (both the Tyranid and the Necron SC have been changed recently).
This will allow GW to sell more kits that aren't doing so well right now by including them in the new SC boxes and to convince hobbyists to buy another SC box for the armies they already have, as the content will be different.

Overread wrote:I think the share price also took a hit because the bubble on their outstanding rise started to burst and GW themselves noted that they expected things to level off. So they likely saw a loss of value and investors who were in it for the fast gains and who have now likely moved onto other fast growing companies. Also lets not forget that, at least last time I checked, their share price is still way up for GW in general.

Yes shares always do a bit of that. However there was a clear issue with their last financials in that their sales were still on the same upward trend but their profits were stalling. Given what we know about the business model - big upfront costs but low production costs for models - that should not happen. An increase in sales should see a larger increase in profits from the simple economics we see discussed on threads like this but clearly that has not been the case in 2018.

Given that their profits did not track their sales as expected the likely dividends similarly will not and the shares are then worth less. At one point the price had dipped into what I would consider an over-correction just as when they were heading for GBP40 I believed they were overvalued - even so the current price seems to factor in some problem with turning sales into profits. As a business GW would want to deal with any such problem and nip it in the bud. I would guess that the change in SC set pricing is part of that.

The paint prices are just a non-issue from a business point of view, they put them up infrequently but this increase looks to be in line with general inflation on that basis. On a personal point of view we would all like stuff that effectively gets cheaper over time with fixed prices that ignore inflation but that is not a business-like way of looking at things.

If the UK is apparently "imploding" then I'm not sure how I'd describe the USA....

One profit related factor is labour cost. The UK has seen year on year rises in the national living wage which tends to impact most wages, not just the lowest, as well as increases to what employers legally have to pay into a pension. On top of that there is a labour shortage in Nottingham, where they are based, so this impacts starting wages and costs.

My feeling is we are going to see £60 SC sets.

Compared to equivalent products then most, not all, are still good value. Paint is a non issue, in most towns and cities in the UK it's the only paint range on the high street. Even in Nottingham I couldn't tell you if anyone has Vallejo as the only other stockist is in Derby.

Looking at other UK business then these rises are actually quite restrained tbh.

TheSecretSquig wrote:UK 2019 forecasted inflation is predicted to be around 2%. GW's £0.20 rise on paint pots is 8%. I'm sue there's some logic there............... Just struggling to see it.

When was the last time GW incresed the cost of the paint cost and what have the accumulated inflation been under that time?

also the pound has lost in value and with brexit it will lose more, so all production cost will increase

But every sale outside the U.K. will be worth more, and frequently at a higher GBP price than U.K. RRP.

This only works if they can buy materials to produce these in the UK. Every single thing they need to import, no matter what it is, paper, plastic, mould tools, anything really, will also go up eating these sales and making UK sales worse comparatively. Add to that big possibility of no deal REMOVED, DO NOT CIRCUMVENT THE LANGUAGE FILTER - BrookM adding tariffs on top of that, both ways, and I can see why GW is scared.

Luciferian wrote:Vallejo was a better deal than Citadel paints before, it will be even more so after this. I think that GW's model prices are pretty fair, but I don’t know where they get off charging so much for their paint.

One thing I don't get is why GW does so little to promote their paints. I saw a video recently showing '12' ml of GW being pretty much equal to '18' ml of others (well emptied GW pot filled dropper bottle to about same level as fresh competitor) but the PR damage from under-reporting is huge. I saw hundreds of videos or articles saying "buy Vallejo, they give you 50% more" or dividing GW price by lower capacity to show they are more expensive. If they transitioned to a dropper bottle (say, call it 'bolter shell' design or whatever if they need to trademark it), claimed it now has 20 ml for the same price, then even with little change to actual paint content they would start selling much more. And it's not like they are even limited in any way in paint production seeing it's completely outsourced.

The only explanation I can think of is the fact technical paints probably don't like dropper bottles and GW doesn't want to run two different bottle sizes...

Overread wrote:I think the share price also took a hit because the bubble on their outstanding rise started to burst and GW themselves noted that they expected things to level off. So they likely saw a loss of value and investors who were in it for the fast gains and who have now likely moved onto other fast growing companies. Also lets not forget that, at least last time I checked, their share price is still way up for GW in general.

Yes shares always do a bit of that. However there was a clear issue with their last financials in that their sales were still on the same upward trend but their profits were stalling. Given what we know about the business model - big upfront costs but low production costs for models - that should not happen. An increase in sales should see a larger increase in profits from the simple economics we see discussed on threads like this but clearly that has not been the case in 2018.

Given that their profits did not track their sales as expected the likely dividends similarly will not and the shares are then worth less. At one point the price had dipped into what I would consider an over-correction just as when they were heading for GBP40 I believed they were overvalued - even so the current price seems to factor in some problem with turning sales into profits. As a business GW would want to deal with any such problem and nip it in the bud. I would guess that the change in SC set pricing is part of that.

The paint prices are just a non-issue from a business point of view, they put them up infrequently but this increase looks to be in line with general inflation on that basis. On a personal point of view we would all like stuff that effectively gets cheaper over time with fixed prices that ignore inflation but that is not a business-like way of looking at things.

Looking at the number of new models being dropped I am wondering if profit stalls are due to upfront costs of making so many new moulds.

timetowaste85 wrote:So, I confess to not knowing much about other companies’ paint “blends”...but GW having pricier paints that come pre-set as shades, base paints, layers, edges, dries, washes, glazes...part of that upcost is having the paint styles ready made for everyone to pick up and use immediately without having to fish for that correct blend. Or pigment changes that allow for good coverage for difficult colors like red, yellow and orange. $0.25/pot increase won’t kill me. The SC cost increases suck though...gonna snag 2 Slaanesh SC boxes off eBay before the hike hits.

The market proposition for GW paints is really very different to the competitors. They are part of a whole approach including video tutorials (Peachy and Duncan), an app that will remind you of workable combos and store staff who can advise on colours and combinations. It is all extremely beginner-friendly for a hobby that could be a bit hard for beginners to get into at a decent level. Everything about their range - even the bottle design so despised in this thread - is designed to be beginner-friendly. A 2.70 pot of paint that comes with all that easily accessible support and guidance is far better value for money for a beginner than a 1.80 dropper bottle that does not. The pot prices are going up in line with inflation since they last went up, the proposition and market positioning of their paints is not changing at all.

This is only true for absolute beginners though. GW's paint system is actually really impressive, i wish it was in place when I still worked at an FLGS as I still recommend GW paints as the best option to absolute beginners. But ONLY to absolute beginners! If you have any experience painting anything then you'll get just as much mileage out of Reaper's Triad system of paints (for significantly cheaper) or Warcolours 1-5 system (for significantly cheaper), and Armypainter washes are every bit as good as GW washes (for significantly cheaper) and you can colormatch near enough any GW paint with Vallejo Game Color or Model Color (for significantly cheaper).

GW has crafted an amazing step-by-step system to getting new players up and running quickly and effectively with good table-top quility paintjobs. They've become the Ikea of miniatures painting

The market proposition for GW paints is really very different to the competitors. They are part of a whole approach including video tutorials (Peachy and Duncan), an app that will remind you of workable combos and store staff who can advise on colours and combinations. It is all extremely beginner-friendly for a hobby that could be a bit hard for beginners to get into at a decent level. Everything about their range - even the bottle design so despised in this thread - is designed to be beginner-friendly. A 2.70 pot of paint that comes with all that easily accessible support and guidance is far better value for money for a beginner than a 1.80 dropper bottle that does not. The pot prices are going up in line with inflation since they last went up, the proposition and market positioning of their paints is not changing at all.

Let's be honest, though; you don't have to be a pro painter to realize that crimson red is crimson red or that you can thin your paints a little more and get a different level of opacity out of them. The painting tutorials are already free and apply equally to other paint ranges as long as you have the capacity to compare like colors. I'm color blind and even I can do it. The only additional value proposition in the GW paint system is that, instead of Duncan saying, "I'm going to use a dark red and thin it out a bit more than I would for a base coat," he says, "now I'm breaking out my Mephiston Red Layer Paint (tm)" in an effort to get you to buy several bottles of the same color with a slight adjustment in medium, hoping that you won't realize that every other company out there has a nearly identical shade of red with a more mundane name and that any paint can be a base, layer or glaze depending on how much water or medium you add to it yourself.

Overread wrote:I think the share price also took a hit because the bubble on their outstanding rise started to burst and GW themselves noted that they expected things to level off. So they likely saw a loss of value and investors who were in it for the fast gains and who have now likely moved onto other fast growing companies. Also lets not forget that, at least last time I checked, their share price is still way up for GW in general.

Yes shares always do a bit of that. However there was a clear issue with their last financials in that their sales were still on the same upward trend but their profits were stalling. Given what we know about the business model - big upfront costs but low production costs for models - that should not happen. An increase in sales should see a larger increase in profits from the simple economics we see discussed on threads like this but clearly that has not been the case in 2018.

Given that their profits did not track their sales as expected the likely dividends similarly will not and the shares are then worth less. At one point the price had dipped into what I would consider an over-correction just as when they were heading for GBP40 I believed they were overvalued - even so the current price seems to factor in some problem with turning sales into profits. As a business GW would want to deal with any such problem and nip it in the bud. I would guess that the change in SC set pricing is part of that.

The paint prices are just a non-issue from a business point of view, they put them up infrequently but this increase looks to be in line with general inflation on that basis. On a personal point of view we would all like stuff that effectively gets cheaper over time with fixed prices that ignore inflation but that is not a business-like way of looking at things.

Looking at the number of new models being dropped I am wondering if profit stalls are due to upfront costs of making so many new moulds.

They’re opening a new factory. The upfront investment is large for that. Of course shareholders are lemmings and probably saw slightly lower profit margins and started bleating “raise prices! Raise prices!” Like moronic sheep. The inability for publicly traded companies to do any investing without raising a tizzy over margins because all profit has to happen RIGHT NOW leads to gak like the 08 crash.

Chimaera wrote:So you don’t believe post March the Pound as well as the Euro won’t see fluctuations as well as global currency ones as currencies realign? I am guessing we could see swings larger than GW price hike until things stabilise, whatever that may look like? If there is no deal these could be more varied as well as import export tariffs being introduced, go figure.

If GW’s bankers are worth their salt they are already hedging deals.

I don't believe pound fluctuations have much if anything to do with what they decide to charge in other denominations. If anything, if the pound drops that will only mean they will be earning more from their overseas sales. Usually, if you're an exporter, having your home coin be weak drives sales like nobody's business.

Theophony wrote:I’m one of the real wackos as I prefer the GW paints as I paint straight from the pot, no dropper bottles is my preference. That said I have about 100 various dropper bottles from the different ranges to fill in colors. Guess I’ll be trying out the instar paints soon.

Also I had been considering getting some start collecting sets, but then have continuously walked away thinking I can still get better value from other brands. GW still has improved greatly over the last few years.

My point was a number of folks here seem to explain away or ignore anything bad GW does because they've "changed", and most of that change amounts to a social media presence.

A great video looking back on the year's miniatures does not undo the bull gak of an unnecessary price rise.

What does "bad" mean? That you simply don't like it or that GW is being malign?

Costs probably went up for paints just like how tariffs going up just mean the cost gets passed to the consumer. SC were too good a value and cannibalizing standard kits.

There is plenty of choice for paint out there. If SC pricing breaks your hobby ability with ubiquitous 15% discounts on top plus the occasional additional 10 o 15% off on eBay then it's really the wrong hobby to be in (yes, not all locales benefit in this way).

Considering that you're self professed whale this affects you pretty marginally, right? The company will charge what the market will bear. As long as you continue to buy prices will not cut into their margins more than necessary. And as long as they re-invest their capital into expanding in a sustainable way then I don't really care.

This is a far cry from the old excel sheet of price increases for everything they make.

My point was a number of folks here seem to explain away or ignore anything bad GW does because they've "changed", and most of that change amounts to a social media presence.

A great video looking back on the year's miniatures does not undo the bull gak of an unnecessary price rise.

What does "bad" mean? That you simply don't like it or that GW is being malign?

Costs probably went up for paints just like how tariffs going up just mean the cost gets passed to the consumer. SC were too good a value and cannibalizing standard kits.

There is plenty of choice for paint out there. If SC pricing breaks your hobby ability with ubiquitous 15% discounts on top plus the occasional additional 10 o 15% off on eBay then it's really the wrong hobby to be in (yes, not all locales benefit in this way).

Considering that you're self professed whale this affects you pretty marginally, right? The company will charge what the market will bear. As long as you continue to buy prices will not cut into their margins more than necessary. And as long as they re-invest their capital into expanding in a sustainable way then I don't really care.

This is a far cry from the old excel sheet of price increases for everything they make.

Rayvon wrote:As always with GW, its those down under I feel sorry for.

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Overread wrote:I just want to say thank you to GW for the heads up on the approaching price rises! Another sign of their big attitude change toward gamers!

Is this serious ?

Yes why shouldn't it be?

I'm not saying that I like paying more nor am I thanking them for raising the prices. I'm saying thank you for informing us a month in advance of a price rise. The rise is going to come whether they told us about it in advance or not. So telling us in advance is good customer service that should be thanked because it gives us some time to react to the change (ergo spend before it rises - if one has the opportunity to do so).

It is an attitude change and a positive one from GW. Price rises are going to happen, them telling us with advanced warning is a very positive thing and a big attitude change from them. I see no reason why they shouldn't be thanked for it.

It's perfectly possible to thank someone for informing you of something even if the thing that they are telling you about isn't something you like.

I'm not saying that I like paying more nor am I thanking them for raising the prices. I'm saying thank you for informing us a month in advance of a price rise. The rise is going to come whether they told us about it in advance or not. So telling us in advance is good customer service that should be thanked because it gives us some time to react to the change (ergo spend before it rises - if one has the opportunity to do so).

It is an attitude change and a positive one from GW. Price rises are going to happen, them telling us with advanced warning is a very positive thing and a big attitude change from them. I see no reason why they shouldn't be thanked for it.

It's perfectly possible to thank someone for informing you of something even if the thing that they are telling you about isn't something you like.

They announced price increases in advance during the 'Kirby' era. Are you conveniently forgetting that to fill this narrative of 'a change in attitude' from GW?

Chimaera wrote:Really got to love the race to the bottom on pricing logic some people propose on here

As for apologism suggested, no just reality.

Which ever way you cut it GW produce great figures and the box sets are great value.

Different market but big companies, compare the SW’s Legion offering to Dark Imperium. One cost £80 and the other £95. One gives you loads of card and 33 poor quality figures, the other offers some paper but 53 very high quality miniatures. Which one is better value?

Of course this is a narrow comparison but the point is still valid i.e. how is GW over priced in the market on a quality like for like basis.

Or I could play historicals, where I can get infantry en masse with better sculpting and proportions than GW models for astronomically low prices in comparison. Defending GW prices is nothing but delusional apologism while you're getting fleeced by a company bloating its prices via incompetency. GW needs to finally expand and shift production into cheaper markets with better powergrids than a suburban area.

Because I paint GW figures and I'm partially color blind - specifically similar shades of blue and green. Following their paint by numbers approach, I can get figures to look how they are supposed to look. Even when I paint Infinity figures, I still use GW's paint system for the colors and highlights.

Sqorgar wrote:Because I paint GW figures and I'm partially color blind - specifically similar shades of blue and green. Following their paint by numbers approach, I can get figures to look how they are supposed to look. Even when I paint Infinity figures, I still use GW's paint system for the colors and highlights.

GW's paint system is incredibly intuitive for those for those of us inexperienced with painting (or colour blind, or both!).

I'm colorblind, but I still know that red is red and green is green even if I have trouble telling them apart. There's really nothing stopping anyone from using GW's paint methods with comparable colors from other companies.

GW paints are actually quite good, just the fact they cost more and give less than basically every other paint out there is a little bothersome since there's no reason for either of those things. There's no reason they should give 12mL for more than you can get 17/17.5mL from Vallejo/Army Painter/P3/anyone else excluding cheap craft paints which are even more for even less at a cost of overall quality.

According to my GW for the US it's paint going up 30 cents and SC going up by 20%.

Luciferian wrote:I'm colorblind, but I still know that red is red and green is green even if I have trouble telling them apart.

I can't tell one shade of green from another similar shade of green. When doing highlights, it's very easy for me to end up making a model look a little more blue or yellowish than intended. It kind of sucks to spend hours working on a model and then have everybody say that they look like they are sick.

There's really nothing stopping anyone from using GW's paint methods with comparable colors from other companies.

Eh, convenience. I can get GW paints several places in town, but have to order P3 or other vendor paints online. And then I'd have to constantly cross reference the paint. Which one was supposed to be Mournfang Brown again? I'm not buying paint pots every week, but I do paint every week, so I'd rather pay a few extra cents every once in a while to have convenience all the time.

I'm never going to be a Golden Demon winner, but I do enjoy painting as a leisure activity. I'm not trying to get the maximum bang for my buck, or score great deals or anything like that. I just want to paint and I want the part where I prepare to paint to be as effortless as possible so that I keep doing it when I often would rather just tool around online and complain in forums about stupid things.

I'm much more upset with the Start Collecting boxes going up in price. There's several that I've wanted for a while and just never got around to getting. I feel in my bones that Sylvaneth and Kharadron Overlords are getting an update this year, so I really want to start some small armies with them. But rather than spacing them out a few months apart, I'm now looking at getting them both right now to save $30-$40 (that's basically the cost of a battletome).

GW can do this kind of thing because they have the market so heavily dominated.

I assume the price rise on some of the start collecting kits is likely due to the fact there are some that people just repeatedly buy rather than the individual models due to the value. Imperial guard is a great example of this, as well as Tau.

As for paint, I won't lie, I really like GW paint. It's easy to use, there's a lot of easily accessible information on finding the right sets to use etc. As mirrored on this discussion though, the pots suck. I use a wet pallette - the pot is open for 10 second at most, yet that's enough for paint to run into the hinge, crust up and eventually squirt out when I close it. This won't change though - too distinctive a shape now and too many displays that they fit out there

Wayniac wrote:GW paints are actually quite good, just the fact they cost more and give less than basically every other paint out there is a little bothersome since there's no reason for either of those things. There's no reason they should give 12mL for more than you can get 17/17.5mL from Vallejo/Army Painter/P3/anyone else excluding cheap craft paints which are even more for even less at a cost of overall quality.

Yes there is. More ££££ for GW. You think they care about customers? ££££££££££££ is all they care and obviously they figure they get more of that this way.

Luciferian wrote:I'm colorblind, but I still know that red is red and green is green even if I have trouble telling them apart. There's really nothing stopping anyone from using GW's paint methods with comparable colors from other companies.

Of course there isn't, and a friend of mine swears by Army Painter's paint system.

Some of us just happen to like the way GW does their paints* and the ecosystem they have built around them, up to and including their online presence when it comes to tutorials and instructions, especially with how they are presented. Doubly so for people who have never been interested or don't really know how to paint (like me!). Hell, I once ran into Duncan at a gaming store in Oz, thanked him and shook his hand for all the help he'd provided online, as his videos are what got me to start trying.

*Not the names. The paint names are slowed. The fact that there are paints called 'The Fang' and 'XV-88' - which is a great colour BTW - is simply inexcusable.

I cant paint for gak but the GW tutorials along with the paints helped me dip my toe in more comfortably than some other firms and with the system they use its easier than ever to copy the studio paint jobs.

Everything gets more expensive every year. I am surprised it is only limited to these few things. I get a pay rise every year, things increase in price every year (inflation and cost of living in the modern age). It balances out (if not is ebay etc).

In AU prob different cause we already over the 100 mark but (for visual of the price), not that big deal if go from 140 to 155 for us (apart from the scions box, all others pretty sure will still save like $70 or so)
EDIT: the Scions box should have 3 units of scions to make it in line with other boxes (I know went 2 cause 10 like most others, but 10 scions are way cheaper than say 10 deathwatch marines)

I am actually selling my Russian army (voystrans) so thinking of buying scion army for my inquisitor force (I have the kaskans the old metal models x70) thinking of replacing, hence I looked into scions and found them wanting.

I really like how now three armies introduced post-Primaris have SC, while so called ""poster boys"" still have zero and every single astartes SC box in existence consist of squatmarines. I wonder what mental gymnastics FUD brigade will invent this time to explain how making new range really inaccessible (due to at best average rules, very high price of character models, and the fact every single starter they were in was much less desirable dual one) somehow ""proves"" squatting of SM line, for real this time?

Anyway, I really don't get why BA and DW were put in 'higher' price bracket. Not only savings in both were not that spectacular, most of the savings are more than covered by HQ model you only need one of at best, if not zero, because neither is really optimal for their army. Did someone really spam Baals or Dreads to make these SC that appealing?

I have to disagree with Captain Artemis in the DW... I have bought like 12 of this model (cause his armour is ornate, from ebay and I bought like 3 or 4 death masque box sets when they where a thing) with head conversions, weapon conversion and adding Jump packs on some is the best HQDW model ever (easy to convert, change leg position, shoulder pad etc and is versatile). All my captains have his armour (conversion of him). He is a phenomenal model (personal opinion). His actual rules are crap but he is an awesome conversion model for a DWHQ

I personally think GW is shooting themselves in the foot with this move but well see.

65€ is closer to 50€ than to 100€ but 80€ isn't, and thats how most people will see it.

I agree. Where I live they are going up due to currency fluctuation and this is added on top. At this point I see no reason to buy any of the SC unless I am starting a new army and want to save that 5 pound off the HQ.

Irbis wrote:Anyway, I really don't get why BA and DW were put in 'higher' price bracket. Not only savings in both were not that spectacular, most of the savings are more than covered by HQ model you only need one of at best, if not zero, because neither is really optimal for their army. Did someone really spam Baals or Dreads to make these SC that appealing?

They got upgrade sprues 'on top' of the minis so making the 'better' value than the vanilla space marines, it looks like GW is now assigning a £5 value to that

I've not read the whole thread, I just wanted to mention I was going to order several SC boxes before the price rise. It seems my prefered suppliers no longer have them on their websites. Anyone else found this?

laam999 wrote:I've not read the whole thread, I just wanted to mention I was going to order several SC boxes before the price rise. It seems my prefered suppliers no longer have them on their websites. Anyone else found this?

Depending on the background behind this GW might already be charging distributors an increased rate for supply in advance of the price rise for the public. So 3rd parties might well have to adjust their own prices, especially if they don't currently hold stock.

I just did a quick check on the Tyranids SC box and ElementGames, FirestormGames and WaylandGames all had them in stock/listed at their original £50 RRP and accompanying discount.

Much as it pains me and I want to grab another Mawlock/Trygon kit from A Tyranid SC box I'll have to miss out the last grab madness. I've spent my hobby budget for the month and really want to focus on getting my Daughters of Khaine functional and done.

Irbis wrote:Anyway, I really don't get why BA and DW were put in 'higher' price bracket. Not only savings in both were not that spectacular, most of the savings are more than covered by HQ model you only need one of at best, if not zero, because neither is really optimal for their army. Did someone really spam Baals or Dreads to make these SC that appealing?

They got upgrade sprues 'on top' of the minis so making the 'better' value than the vanilla space marines, it looks like GW is now assigning a £5 value to that

Um, BA box has zero upgrade sprues in it. It's all native BA units. DW does have one, for dread, and I really hope it's not the justification (though seeing DW treatment in 8th, it might well be). What drawn me to DW was the fact GW was willing to throw in cool upgrade to unit look for relatively little, adding small neat bonus to each purchase. Why they reverse it now (to often stupid degree, see IF box having one less unit thanks to three piddly tiny upgrade frames) I have no idea

Spectral Ceramite wrote:I have to disagree with Captain Artemis in the DW... I have bought like 12 of this model (cause his armour is ornate, from ebay and I bought like 3 or 4 death masque box sets when they where a thing) with head conversions, weapon conversion and adding Jump packs on some is the best HQDW model ever (easy to convert, change leg position, shoulder pad etc and is versatile). All my captains have his armour (conversion of him). He is a phenomenal model (personal opinion). His actual rules are crap but he is an awesome conversion model for a DWHQ

Fair enough, though you're not buying Artemis, you're grabbing conversion bits. And, to be honest, besides his special combi-flamer (in 8th edition?) and set of running legs, there is little you couldn't replicate with standard DW bits. I'd probably picked up a box of sternguard or vanguard vets instead to not end up with identical minis, but yeah, he is nice and I can see the appeal...

Irbis wrote:Anyway, I really don't get why BA and DW were put in 'higher' price bracket. Not only savings in both were not that spectacular, most of the savings are more than covered by HQ model you only need one of at best, if not zero, because neither is really optimal for their army. Did someone really spam Baals or Dreads to make these SC that appealing?

They got upgrade sprues 'on top' of the minis so making the 'better' value than the vanilla space marines, it looks like GW is now assigning a £5 value to that

Or they could just put the ultramarines sprue into the generic ones instead.

Taking something you haven't paid for isn't any less wrong just because you think it's too expensive to pay for...

To be fair, 40k is very affordable if you steal it.

At what gw wants for minis they can't whine about people not buying books. A lot of mini game makers make the rules available as free pdfs because they make most money off minis. But most mini game makers donct give crack dealers someone to look down on either.

Wow, I did a straight conversion from pound to dollar and didn’t realize there was an overhead GW was adding to their prices for the US. No wonder I’ve always felt like the prices ought to be about 20% cheaper than I’m paying - if I was in the UK I would be.

Stormonu wrote:Wow, I did a straight conversion from pound to dollar and didn’t realize there was an overhead GW was adding to their prices for the US. No wonder I’ve always felt like the prices ought to be about 20% cheaper than I’m paying - if I was in the UK I would be.

Stormonu wrote:Wow, I did a straight conversion from pound to dollar and didn’t realize there was an overhead GW was adding to their prices for the US. No wonder I’ve always felt like the prices ought to be about 20% cheaper than I’m paying - if I was in the UK I would be.

Yup, don't forget that US has tax applied after the fact, while most other places have it baked into the price. Its often cheaper for me to order from a British or Polish store, have it sent to a friend/family, and have them ship it to me than it is to buy at the US price.

Assuming the max allowed GW discount, I think the current price of the SC sets drops to 72usd with free shipping and no tax (ebay), while ordering from somewhere overseas and having it shipped to me by a friend is 50usd after conversion + the cost to have the friend ship it. The 20 full dollars saved per pack usually more than offsets the postage.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:Everything gets more expensive every year. I am surprised it is only limited to these few things. I get a pay rise every year, things increase in price every year (inflation and cost of living in the modern age). It balances out (if not is ebay etc).

Check the previous annual and half year reports and GW spells it all out. They seek a 3% increase of the price of items sold. So if new releases make up 30% of sales then to get an average price of 3% higher than last year, they need to price the new stuff at 10% higher than a similar product from last year.

But what happens if Start Collecting is super popular and ends up shifting the ratios? What happens if something priced 10% higher only sells at 25% of total sales? Then they only have an average increase of 2.5%. So if they want to hit their targets for the average price of their products, they'll increase the start collecting sets.

And since they know exactly how many of each sold (we do not) they can tune them all to different price points to both hit their pricing targets as well as to maximise revenue.

Now what they really should do is look at why the Start Collecting are so popular and then use the answer to that question to reevaluate their pricing model and goals for average price per product.

If the goal is to protect margins and maximize return on capital then getting revenue at the low marginal cost of an existing designed sprue is something that should be encouraged rather than discouraged through price hikes. The answer to Start Collectings being popular is to make more of them and turn existing dead sprues into desirable items.

Instead of trying to maintain and artificial price increase of 3% per year, they should concentrate on their margins and return on capital and encourage people to buy more and more of their existing kits. The design, development and tooling costs for these are already covered and each new sprue sold is at the best possible return. Discouraging this through price hikes is a bad idea.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:Everything gets more expensive every year. I am surprised it is only limited to these few things. I get a pay rise every year, things increase in price every year (inflation and cost of living in the modern age). It balances out (if not is ebay etc).

1) That is yearly raise. When was last time SC set price was raised? 2) That is average raise. So even with 2% inflation some things might actually get less expensive while others might jump up 20%. So, yeah, two out of two wrong, very badly at that. There are arguments against GW price raise but the above isn't one, not in the slightest...

Spectral Ceramite wrote:Everything gets more expensive every year. I am surprised it is only limited to these few things. I get a pay rise every year, things increase in price every year (inflation and cost of living in the modern age). It balances out (if not is ebay etc).

1) That is yearly raise. When was last time SC set price was raised? 2) That is average raise. So even with 2% inflation some things might actually get less expensive while others might jump up 20%. So, yeah, two out of two wrong, very badly at that. There are arguments against GW price raise but the above isn't one, not in the slightest...

A lot of people don’t get a pay raise every year, and yeah I got that poor people aren’t allowed to have nice things or whatever the justification is to out of hobbling, but trying to justify a price hike on product that has a significant return already with the idea that everything gets more expensive every year, even labor, is wrong since labor lags badly behind inflation

Spectral Ceramite wrote:Everything gets more expensive every year. I am surprised it is only limited to these few things. I get a pay rise every year, things increase in price every year (inflation and cost of living in the modern age). It balances out (if not is ebay etc).

1) That is yearly raise. When was last time SC set price was raised? 2) That is average raise. So even with 2% inflation some things might actually get less expensive while others might jump up 20%. So, yeah, two out of two wrong, very badly at that. There are arguments against GW price raise but the above isn't one, not in the slightest...

A lot of people don’t get a pay raise every year, and yeah I got that poor people aren’t allowed to have nice things or whatever the justification is to out of hobbling, but trying to justify a price hike on product that has a significant return already with the idea that everything gets more expensive every year, even labor, is wrong since labor lags badly behind inflation

Whilst a lot of people don’t get a pay raise each year, the bulk of the staff working in the Games Workshop. factory are likely to be earning the UK minimum wage which is receiving a raise of 4.9% in April of this year. It also increased by 4.4% last year. Since 2012 the minimum wage has increased by 32.6%. This is potentially a big labour increase for GW factories.

The UK minimum wage is not a lot of money but is seeing significant, annual increases to make it an amount people can actually afford to live on.

Inflation is still 2% each year.
Inflation doesn’t stop cos oh wait, not everyone got a pay rise.
That’s the employers at fault (and it isn’t their fault, they can’t just get money from nowhere sometimes). And why would they unless national minimums go up..

Automatically Appended Next Post: The thing I don’t get is people always say, they shouldn’t put the prices up on these ones or those ones as they already made back the mold costs.
Everything stays in line for GW roughly, so they won’t just put all the Seraphon kits down in price as they are old, but all the newer stuff go up.
It’d be a death sentence for new stuff compared..

Though I do think older stuff should go out on sale and such, when it is being replaced or what not. (Though see why they don’t. A it being premium product as a hobby, and B if a kit had a new version out and the old ones went cheap, who would buy the newer sculpts..)

I really don’t like higher prices, and all in all it will mean I buy less from them the more it happens, but I can’t argue with the times..

Just look at other prices : inflation result in slow and general increases in prices in a non-homogeneous manner because compagnies just doesn't want to repercute totally and systematically the evolution of production cost on their price due to the simple fact that it might badly impact the demand for their products. Only in specific goods, like for exemple energy, you see this kind of publicized, important and controlled raise in price (specifically at the beginning of the year) : GW just can do whatever it want with its prices because it has complete monopoly over its franchise. Heck frozenwaste just pointed out above why is it that they increased their price, it's not because their production cost increased due to inflation ...

The thing I don’t get is people always say, they shouldn’t put the prices up on these ones or those ones as they already made back the mold costs.
Everything stays in line for GW roughly, so they won’t just put all the Seraphon kits down in price as they are old, but all the newer stuff go up.
It’d be a death sentence for new stuff compared..

In a round about way, that's exactly what they do. Their stated aim is to continue price increases on new releases, so by comparison the older a kit is the cheaper it looks.

As they circle round and refresh the range every 5-10 years or so, the old cheap stuff disappears forever and the new shiny jumps in price up to the new normal for that band of kit.

What people are objecting to is the fact that the SC largely feature kits that have been on sale for a long time, and because the production costs of plastic kits is heavily front loaded and mostly in the design and machining will be costing a very modest amount to manufacture. A better reflection in increasing costs would be an accelerated increase in the price of new releases, but I think frozenwastes has nailed it with his post on the reasoning for the rises.

Stormonu wrote:Wow, I did a straight conversion from pound to dollar and didn’t realize there was an overhead GW was adding to their prices for the US. No wonder I’ve always felt like the prices ought to be about 20% cheaper than I’m paying - if I was in the UK I would be.

Can you come and tell my pot of ceramite white that so it can go back to being liquid rather than the half formed jelly it was on the day I opened it.

Bruh. Ceramite White is a repeat offender. I am not sure I've gotten a pot yet that hasn't been way, way too thick.

Yeah, the white is always thick like that and I find even when thinner tends to be gunkier. Meanwhile my black paint always wants to leak around the hinge. Those two colors are just consistent troublemakers for me.

I think I will get the Beastmen box then. It has good savings right now and it is going up. So fair enough, GW gave me sufficient warning to make the purchase.

I think obviously they will sell fewer SC sets now. Shame. They were getting me back into GW models in a way I hadn't been for years and spurring extra purchases to "fill out" my forces. I would say they made an extra 200 euro at minimum from me, probably a bit more because I have forgotten some of the characters I picked up. And that is on top of the SC, not including them. Purchases I would not have made without the percieved value of the SC set to get me interested.

I think I will get the Beastmen box then. It has good savings right now and it is going up. So fair enough, GW gave me sufficient warning to make the purchase.

I ended up buying the last Khorne Bloodbound SC at my FLGS as a 35 pound savings is just crazy.

I think obviously they will sell fewer SC sets now. Shame. They were getting me back into GW models in a way I hadn't been for years and spurring extra purchases to "fill out" my forces. I would say they made an extra 200 euro at minimum from me, probably a bit more because I have forgotten some of the characters I picked up. And that is on top of the SC, not including them. Purchases I would not have made without the percieved value of the SC set to get me interested.

I agree somewhat. The deals are still good, but are now more implicitly targeted at new players. To be fair some of the kits were priced so that you never really had a reason to buy anything beyond more SC. I mean, two bloodbound SC and you were technically getting a Skullcrusher box for free.

What I would I have liked to see is more parity in the content value of the boxes. Some have really low savings(Space Wolves) and some apparently negative savings(Greenskinz).

I was always surprised the Fyreslayers box stayed the price it did for so long. You were always just paying for the Magmadroth and everything else was free. Hell, GW said that if you ordered the 'droth, then they would just send the start collecting instead.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:I was always surprised the Fyreslayers box stayed the price it did for so long. You were always just paying for the Magmadroth and everything else was free. Hell, GW said that if you ordered the 'droth, then they would just send the start collecting instead.

My guess is they realised they'd outpriced their audience with Fyreslayers.

Vulkite Berserkers were £35 for ten compared to the new Namarti being £30.

Fyreslayers weren't shifting because the entire army barring the Magmadroth was overpriced naked Dwarfs, so figured SC might shift some boxes.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:I was always surprised the Fyreslayers box stayed the price it did for so long. You were always just paying for the Magmadroth and everything else was free. Hell, GW said that if you ordered the 'droth, then they would just send the start collecting instead.

My guess is they realised they'd outpriced their audience with Fyreslayers.

Vulkite Berserkers were £35 for ten compared to the new Namarti being £30.

Fyreslayers weren't shifting because the entire army barring the Magmadroth was overpriced naked Dwarfs, so figured SC might shift some boxes.

The Seraphon box is the same way - either buy the Carnosaur or buy the Carnosaur and get a few free units with it. Same price.

But then again we've been extremely busy lately, to answer one important question we are not planning any price rises this year so you can be rest assured that not only will you be able to get hold of high quality paint in various dropper bottle sizes in GW matched shades, you will now save even more money buying through us!

In regards to our products being available in retail environments, there are plans to get this underway this year in the U.K only for now but we plan to be hitting international stores within 2-3 years (unless we get any requests in the interim, we've already had some interest from U.S stores)

As for international markets, this was one of the first considerations we made when we were planning the brand and our pricing is the most competitive in the market as well as fast (Parcels arriving in Australia in a much as 2 weeks...sometimes less).

We're also getting a lot of love for our metallic paints at the moment across social media with the realism being one of the high points as well as it's ease of use, we also regularly update our lines with new colours and we also have a new version of our washes on the way, same great colours and higher pigment content than GW...or less if you go for the Soft version but it will stay exactly where you put it and not run off everywhere allowing for some great precision when applying the washes.

You can use the links below to check out more about us and if you look at our recent work, you'll see an interesting modification we did to a Riptide model

But then again we've been extremely busy lately, to answer one important question we are not planning any price rises this year so you can be rest assured that not only will you be able to get hold of high quality paint in various dropper bottle sizes in GW matched shades, you will now save even more money buying through us!

In regards to our products being available in retail environments, there are plans to get this underway this year in the U.K only for now but we plan to be hitting international stores within 2-3 years (unless we get any requests in the interim, we've already had some interest from U.S stores)

As for international markets, this was one of the first considerations we made when we were planning the brand and our pricing is the most competitive in the market as well as fast (Parcels arriving in Australia in a much as 2 weeks...sometimes less).

We're also getting a lot of love for our metallic paints at the moment across social media with the realism being one of the high points as well as it's ease of use, we also regularly update our lines with new colours and we also have a new version of our washes on the way, same great colours and higher pigment content than GW...or less if you go for the Soft version but it will stay exactly where you put it and not run off everywhere allowing for some great precision when applying the washes.

You can use the links below to check out more about us and if you look at our recent work, you'll see an interesting modification we did to a Riptide model

But then again we've been extremely busy lately, to answer one important question we are not planning any price rises this year so you can be rest assured that not only will you be able to get hold of high quality paint in various dropper bottle sizes in GW matched shades, you will now save even more money buying through us!

In regards to our products being available in retail environments, there are plans to get this underway this year in the U.K only for now but we plan to be hitting international stores within 2-3 years (unless we get any requests in the interim, we've already had some interest from U.S stores)

As for international markets, this was one of the first considerations we made when we were planning the brand and our pricing is the most competitive in the market as well as fast (Parcels arriving in Australia in a much as 2 weeks...sometimes less).

We're also getting a lot of love for our metallic paints at the moment across social media with the realism being one of the high points as well as it's ease of use, we also regularly update our lines with new colours and we also have a new version of our washes on the way, same great colours and higher pigment content than GW...or less if you go for the Soft version but it will stay exactly where you put it and not run off everywhere allowing for some great precision when applying the washes.

You can use the links below to check out more about us and if you look at our recent work, you'll see an interesting modification we did to a Riptide model

Customers will always ask for lower prices. In general its rare to find any market where there isn't someone asking for a lower price.

bigger businesses get it en-mass through the net and most of the time they won't even rise to comment on it. They just chug along and look at the actual sales data. If their product starts to dwindle in sales then they can conduct market research and look at why their product isn't selling - though the argument might be more complex than "too high a price". Quality, customer service, access, stores etc... could also confuse and muddy the water.

So petitions won't do much; esp online where they can be faked. I don't just mean fake accounts, but also people voting who are not, nor never will be, GW customers even if they gave you their product for free.

fraser1191 wrote:Has anyone ever thought of starting a petition for GW to lower their prices/fix their foreign prices. I'll probably have to pay $120 for a box now

Ouch! There was a petition online last year. I doubt the things influence them much. I'm afraid decreasing sales is the only thing that could influence their behavior in the players' favor.

There's always a couple floating about (1, 2 & 3, for example) but they never go anywhere (and then there are these ones...).

That's soul crushing...

If they kept the current boxes the same price but newer boxes were more expensive then yeah sure, but I don't want all boxes to go up. Also for the record straight conversion of prices a start collecting box should be 76 in Canadian (id settle for 80) but I gotta pay 24 dollars more for I guess shipping? Or just the GW premium I suppose

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

We could pretend that GW molds are made out of platinum and their plastic is blended with unicorn dust and foie gra, but let's not kid ourselves here. As for 'detail' and quality of sculpt - some of these other companies beat GW hands down.

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

A semi-rhetorical answer:

Historical games have the andvantage that they don't need to pay designers to develope the art/beackground/look of the specific units and don't need to protect the IP

Another reason is the army size, as most historical games are not valued by a per model prize but a "how much do I pay for the whole army"
A reason why smaller scales were a thing as armies in 28mm full metal were not affordable and players prefered 15 or 6mm (even 15mm WW2 Soviet light tank armies were rare before cheap plastic tanks were available)

So people from different games are willing to pay different prices for their armies.

A historical player who has not a growing system but need the full army at once is not willing to spend more than 200-300 for it (and never 800 or 1000)
A GW game were you start small and have a growing collection also start with those 200/300 but you end up with much more
This was a reason why Warhammer 8th did not work out that well as new gamer needed to spent 600 or more just to start the game (the nice mix of increase prize per model and model count per army)

40k also started low with a 2000 point army consisted of what you get in a nowadays core box.
The per model prize did not really change over time, but the model count per army did and the playerbase just got used to it over time

PS:
GW also had once an experiment about prizing
The plastic Chaos Knights and Hounds were released for cheap just too look if the lower prize will increase the sales to a point were higher profit is made
Suprisingly it did not. People could say now that an elite unit were you don't need much in an low model count army for a system that is already decling is a bad example, but GW's conclusion was different

PPS:
Just for the general info about the cost of such a product, the full color cardboard box costs more than the plastic inside regarding raw material and manufactoring
the high cost for HIPS come from the high start investment the get the design and molds done

GW also have a lot more overheads, Nottingham HQ, hundreds of physical store locations (plus staff), in-house manufacturing with all of the associated maintenance, etc. I imagine people like the Perry's have a much, much, leaner organisation (i.e. a small design office using outsourced manufacturing).

Automatically Appended Next Post: Not trying to defend the prices per se, just advising caution in your comparisons.

Jadenim wrote:GW also have a lot more overheads, Nottingham HQ, hundreds of physical store locations (plus staff), in-house manufacturing with all of the associated maintenance, etc. I imagine people like the Perry's have a much, much, leaner organisation (i.e. a small design office using outsourced manufacturing).
(....)

Which is why I will never, ever, buy a new GW model no more. I am surely willing to pay for the manufacturing of the model and of course the design. I don't need to pay for staff in another countery, IP I don't like or the GW shareholders.
There's businesses and greed.

The few models that GW produces and that I actually like, end up on ebay eventually. Just a matter of patience.

Jadenim wrote:GW also have a lot more overheads, Nottingham HQ, hundreds of physical store locations (plus staff), in-house manufacturing with all of the associated maintenance, etc. I imagine people like the Perry's have a much, much, leaner organisation (i.e. a small design office using outsourced manufacturing).

Automatically Appended Next Post: Not trying to defend the prices per se, just advising caution in your comparisons.

Yeah, that's why hand made items are universally orders of magnitude cheaper than mass produced ones.

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

A semi-rhetorical answer:

Historical games have the andvantage that they don't need to pay designers to develope the art/beackground/look of the specific units and don't need to protect the IP

Thats right. No historical model designers have to do any work at all in research and development of the kits they are going to produce, in order to ensure they are correct for the era. Nope, none at all.

Thats right. No historical model designers have to do any work at all in research and development of the kits they are going to produce, in order to ensure they are correct for the era. Nope, none at all.

There is a difference between model a tank/plane/ship/model after detailed pictures and plans available for everyone
or pay someone who have to create those detailed pictures and planes and make sure that those are completely unique so you don't get into copyright problems

If you think that paying the designer of a new race for a SciFi model is equal to buying an book about WW2 Uniforms, ok

That is not what I said, I said for them the total army price is relevant.
The common player will never go and just buy a 1000€ army that is equal the standard point game in size and the Perrys won't sell a lot models if they would rise their prizes on a GW level and not just becaue historical players are cheapskates

That is not what I said, I said for them the total army price is relevant.
The common player will never go and just buy a 1000€ army that is equal the standard point game in size and the Perrys won't sell a lot models if they would rise their prizes on a GW level and not just becaue historical players are cheapskates

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

As someone posted it is about overhead and the infrastructure GW is financing. There seems to be a somewhat different design process as well and I would like to wonder what the overhead of those differs as I imagine the GW process is somewhat more expensive(whether that justifies such a large increase in pricing is another thing).

There is one thing I can tell about the process though. With many of the historical minis it is much easier to build a new one on the same basis as another. It's what they used to do in toys(see Toys That made Us - Star Wars for examples) and it cuts a lot of the cost down dramatically. For GW a new unit can cost much more in production due to it being relatively unique in the line. I mean, there aren't many kits that you could make the Tervigon out of cheaply which is why GW tends to make multi-part kits out of a new kit to save on development where they can. It is one of the reasons they(GW) can relatively easy churn out those Primaries lieutenants: they are just using the existing model and reposing and modifying a little bit. Compare that to something more advanced like the new Ork buggiez. I went through some of the Perry lines and saw where they were basically using the same basic model but adding different clothing on top. This cuts corners dramatically and historical armor is often more easy to make as it is easier to clone between models compared to some proprietary snowflake uniforms that vary(often wildly) between units.

I would also add that the detail work on the historical minis and GW are in different leagues. The historical minis are proficiently done especially compared to the fact that many(if not most) are handsculpted in an analog way, but they do not have the same level of finesse and detail as the digital counterpart. I work with some really talented digital sculptors and that takes time and money and that is before we count in computers, software licenses, and other overheads. if you look at some of the older GW lines that were handmade like many of the historical figures you start to see the pricing become much more similar to their historical counterparts.

There is also some differences depending on the kit. The Foreign Legion at Perry is 7.5 pounds for monopose static models. For a multi-part kit with a lot of options and ways to pose you get the Cadian Command Squad for just about double. Both detail and options between the Perry one and the Cadian Command Squad are very different. There I would say you are paying for both options, details, and more plastic in general.

Now, don't get me wrong. GW could do with lowering prices on some things(Fyreslayers for one), but with some of the costs on models I fear we are still suffering from the Kirby era pricing.

In short there are a lot of factors and it would be a bit dishonest to do a 1-to-1 comparison as there are very different factors at work. That does not mean that GW couldn't have more room to improve their pricing on various sets.

All those painting videos and podcasts and community content and cartoons and community engagement that everyone has been raving about... that all costs money. GW miniatures are also physically larger and more complicated that historical plastic miniatures, so fewer fit on a sprue. The perry brothers sculpt their own miniatures so they don't have to pay sculptors or researchers and don't need concept artists and don't have to work with background writers to determine what to sculpt. And there's no doubt the quality of the engineering on GW plastic is much higher than the historical kits done by renedra.

But then again we've been extremely busy lately, to answer one important question we are not planning any price rises this year so you can be rest assured that not only will you be able to get hold of high quality paint in various dropper bottle sizes in GW matched shades, you will now save even more money buying through us!

In regards to our products being available in retail environments, there are plans to get this underway this year in the U.K only for now but we plan to be hitting international stores within 2-3 years (unless we get any requests in the interim, we've already had some interest from U.S stores)

As for international markets, this was one of the first considerations we made when we were planning the brand and our pricing is the most competitive in the market as well as fast (Parcels arriving in Australia in a much as 2 weeks...sometimes less).

We're also getting a lot of love for our metallic paints at the moment across social media with the realism being one of the high points as well as it's ease of use, we also regularly update our lines with new colours and we also have a new version of our washes on the way, same great colours and higher pigment content than GW...or less if you go for the Soft version but it will stay exactly where you put it and not run off everywhere allowing for some great precision when applying the washes.

You can use the links below to check out more about us and if you look at our recent work, you'll see an interesting modification we did to a Riptide model

I find it interesting that most of the posts I've seen on this thread are from users I've never or rarely seen in GW threads. It seems like it's mostly been people for whom the price raise is irrelevant since they don't play GW games.

Jadenim wrote:GW also have a lot more overheads, Nottingham HQ, hundreds of physical store locations (plus staff), in-house manufacturing with all of the associated maintenance, etc. I imagine people like the Perry's have a much, much, leaner organisation (i.e. a small design office using outsourced manufacturing).
(....)

Which is why I will never, ever, buy a new GW model no more. I am surely willing to pay for the manufacturing of the model and of course the design. I don't need to pay for staff in another countery, IP I don't like or the GW shareholders.
There's businesses and greed.

So every single product you buy manufactured by an internationally operating company you buy second hand, right?

Your clothes, the phone/computer you use to view this forum, tv, books, etc. What about food and other groceries? No shopping at major supermarket chains for international food brands either I guess.

EnTyme wrote:I find it interesting that most of the posts I've seen on this thread are from users I've never or rarely seen in GW threads. It seems like it's mostly been people for whom the price raise is irrelevant since they don't play GW games.

The ones most likely affected are those on the fence about getting into the game. A rise in price acts as another barrier to their entry even if they already had other barriers; it just adds to them and makes it feel as if the company is pushing them away from it.

Those who already have armies and are committed to them are going to grumble a little, but at the same time might not need any more start collecting boxed sets; or have used this as a justification to grab a few more before the prices go up and the stock runs out before the change.

Meanwhile those who aren't into the hobby at all aren't here to comment. So its no surprise to me that its people on the fringe who are wavering in and out wanting to start

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

We could pretend that GW molds are made out of platinum and their plastic is blended with unicorn dust and foie gra, but let's not kid ourselves here. As for 'detail' and quality of sculpt - some of these other companies beat GW hands down.

There are a lot of reasons which sort of add up.

Historical miniatures do not really need designers, fluff writers etc. They just need 3D CAD modellers to turn existing historical images into renders.This is where a lot of the money goes, the volume of plastic involved hardly even counts as a cost.

GW have a lot of costs which could probably be regarded as "keeping the hobby as a whole alive" such as running their large network of stores and their promotional budget. There are a few big companies producing a few profitable lines which keep the networks of FLGS open and operating Without them we would be back where we were before GW got big - the only real place to play those historical games was at home or at clubs which were rather few and far between (and poorly publicised and hard to find). The small companies such as you mention do not maintain chains of stores nor do they really do any of the legwork in maintaining the profitability of anything but themselves. That is perfectly fine and that is how small companies in this industry have always operated - but if the big companies started operating that way then the hobby as a whole would diminish over time back to the tiny size it had before.

GW do most of their manufacturing in the UK and pay western wages - while a lot of other companies may be based in western countries I am not aware of many of the smaller ones producing plastic minis anywhere other than by outsourcing it to China. Actually paying workers a decent wage seems to be very unfashionable in business these days but it is not something I can find it in my heart to condemn GW for doing.

Gw is certainly a gateway company for miniature wargames in general. In fact with hobbies like Airfix and such being on rather a downer at present I'd wager that GW is possibly the primary introductory point for many.

Certainly in the UK market GW is very well known - most parents have heard of it and by and large most people are aware it exists. So they've already got a huge influence on drawing new people into the hobby.

GW is doing a vast amount of the recruitment legwork that many other companies in the miniature wargames market rely heavily upon even if they might not realise it.

I'd also wager that Historical is on a timebomb in that because they don't market as heavily they are a risk that many of their gamers are much more senior with a much smaller proportion of younger players. This runs a higher risk that they can wind up with a big generation gap and thus, at some point, will lose a large portion of customers around the same time and will have a hard time rebuilding.

Here is What Fireforge said about why their fantasy prices are higher than their historical prices:

"maybe could be strange for you, but our company will earn the same selling one box of an historical product or two boxes of our future fantasy range

This is due to the different production cost.

Our intention is to release on the market really nice figures for fantasy games, from the wargames to the roleplay games and honestly we think they are nice, and also a great push forward from our past production, here some differences:

The proportions are better
There will be the bases you need also for other games
They will be as usual compatible with other sets
There will be a lot of option to assemble them in different ways
The details will be well defined (like the chainmail)
The joints of the parts will be better for assembling
There will be command options to assemble leaders, standard bearers and musicians in all the boxes (except the Living dead peasants, but you will have a double command option in each Living Dead soldiers set to use with peasants)

And in any case, i would like to tell a couple of things:
-1 we are not doing our production with the idea to sell figures for other games, these models are thought for our game, if people will buy them to play AOS or 9th age etc, we will be happy of course, but our intention is our new game
-2 there are companies (someone told about historical companies but it is not only this case) that to increase the price or continuing to sell with a low price their products give you a plastic lower in quality as material: this will be not our way to work as our customers know

A lot of things, for example definition of the sculpts, different sculpting work, more working hours, number of parts and accessories and more.

In past we released historical figures thanks to recycling parts of other plastic sets: otherwise it was impossible to release them. The new fantasy production will not follow this way and each plastic kit will have different parts from others (the torso of a northmen archer is different by the torso of a northmen warrior and so on) and of course this increase a lot the costs.

Who will join to our campaign will do that because think our figures are nice and wants some.
Who will not join our campaign because don't like our models, don't like our prices or other right reasons, will not do that. I think there is nothing of bad. But absolutely there will not be a change of the project to satisfy all the different opinions and wishes, it is simply impossible to do. This campaign will be the result of the best we can offer at the moment, if there will be enough people supporting us we will be happy to release these figures otherwise the project will be cancelled and we will continue to work on our usual market. "

Here's a semi-rhetorical question: How do other model manufacturers such as Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge manage to sell boxes of stuff like.... 44 plastic Romans (various poses with variety of equipment and body part swaps), or 12 multi-part War of the Roses plastic cavalry with more customisable options than the GW kits... for £22, yet GW expects people to pay £35 for 5 space marine Stern Guard or what-ever that have roughly the same or less volume of plastic made in the same manner?

We could pretend that GW molds are made out of platinum and their plastic is blended with unicorn dust and foie gra, but let's not kid ourselves here. As for 'detail' and quality of sculpt - some of these other companies beat GW hands down.

1) There is more competition in Historical miniatures. More competition leads to better prices for the consumer.

2) The historical game companies do not need to keep a staff of talented artists and model markers on hand to fully realize an entirely new unit. All you really need is a large breadth of reference photos and a few guys who can take those reference photos and construct them in a 3D CAD program.

3) GW is a big, big company and it needs to support a huge staff and a world-spanning empire. The prices of its models are set to a bit below what GW believes the market will bare.

"They have high overheads" is categorically not an inherent defense for higher prices.

If you take a luxury car compared to a basic one, you can point to areas where the manufacturer has used more complex systems, higher quality materials, simply included more, to justify a price difference.

If you take two pots of acrylic paint, both comprised of a carrier and a pigment, and the only justification for one's higher price is "muh overhead" then what you have is a company that's managed itself into a situation where it can't compete.

GW leans so hard on its market position for leverage sometimes that should there ever come a time where this sector attracts attention from any sort of market disruptor it's going to have a real fight in its hands.

The absolute reason GW charges what they do - is because people pay it. End of story. If they weren't selling, GW would reduce prices, or reduce inventory, or reduce stores (something they've done several times in the US - anyone who's been around knows how spastic they were about retail locations for the past 15 years).

I don't tend to buy new GW products (except at discount, with free shipping...and additional sales) and won't in the future. However, that doesn't mean other people aren't. I can genuinely say that 80% of GW's current new products are not worth the MSRP "to me". Some are decent deals (particularly via other retailers), but I don't find the models' costs justified.

It's overwhelmingly obvious GW is doing well, and people are still buying stuff at very reasonable rates. They've zero reason to cut costs. Nothing speaks louder than actually stopping buying new product ---- but that would mean tens of thousands of ardent supporters stopping buying stuff from GW. It's not going to happen. Will they eventually price themselves into the stratosphere? Perhaps. Could they sell a box of Primaris marines for $25? Absolutely. Will they? No. No reason to...people are buying them for $60.

Almost any hobby/model company would love to be able to charge what GW does. If we're honest, GW doesn't need retail stores, and they could reduce their overhead substantialy if they desired. They don't see the need to do that at the moment.

Azreal13 wrote:"They have high overheads" is categorically not an inherent defense for higher prices.

If you take a luxury car compared to a basic one, you can point to areas where the manufacturer has used more complex systems, higher quality materials, simply included more, to justify a price difference.

If you take two pots of acrylic paint, both comprised of a carrier and a pigment, and the only justification for one's higher price is "muh overhead" then what you have is a company that's managed itself into a situation where it can't compete.

GW leans so hard on its market position for leverage sometimes that should there ever come a time where this sector attracts attention from any sort of market disruptor it's going to have a real fight in its hands.

Exalted!

And it is hard to believe sometimes that this real, credible market disruptor hasn't shown up yet though!

If we're honest, GW doesn't need retail stores, and they could reduce their overhead substantialy if they desired. They don't see the need to do that at the moment.

This is the part I disagree with. They do need the stores.
Where else will younger players just getting into the hobby learn that there is only Warhammer to play. That you must buy only GW terrain to play a GW game. You only paint with GW brushes and use GW paints. That you can only ever use GW figures for GW games. Etc etc etc.

It's the reason there's the comments like "I'd like to try game XYZ, but I don't like the figures by the XYZ company". It's why there's so many people defending GW on here and looking forward to the price rise. GW need the shops for that cult-like brainwashing.